Home / "We may be building another Garrison Diversion here?" he asked, referring to a separate, unfinished project to move Missouri River water through a channel to eastern North Dakota. This comment spoken during a State Water Commission meeting, March 5, 2003. AP article. / Big water's power play in N.D.

Grand Forks Herald

Posted on Fri, Mar. 07, 2003 story:
EDITORIAL: A state outlet is a misnomer

OUR VIEW: North Dakota can't build an outlet on its own - and should stop pretending that it's about to.

Environmental, political and diplomatic obstacles don't just dot the path of a state outlet from Devils Lake. They block that path, like washed-out bridges crippling a highway after a flood.

So, state Water Commission member Elmer Hillesland was absolutely right to ask, "How are we going to get by ignoring those issues?"

The answer is, the state can't. Because an outlet's impact would cross state and national lines, North Dakota cannot build an outlet on its own. It needs the legal and diplomatic authority of the federal government - yet the commission seems unwilling even to acknowledge this need, let alone act on it.

That must change. Either the state should drop its own outlet plan and turn its full attention to the federal effort, or state officials must get the needed permits and waivers before more money is spent.

Otherwise, dollars and time will keep flowing to a state project that has very little chance of actually being built. And that should be unacceptable to the outlet's supporters and critics alike.

From the state's perspective, the farther one gets from Devils Lake, the bigger the "washouts" loom. Downstream opponents in Valley City and other North Dakota cities probably don't have the political muscle to block the effort. That's clear from the fact that the governor, the water commission and the entire congressional delegation seem perfectly willing to take those residents' heat.

But Minnesota's opposition is something else. How do North Dakota officials plan to get around that? Then, there's Canada, which remains an implacable outlet foe and has boundary waters treaties to back its arguments up. Canada's foreign minister, no less, has declared his intention to invoke those treaty rights to block an outlet if need be.

Is the state planning to act as its own State Department and declare that those rights don't apply?

Get real. It's tough enough for the United States to act unilaterally in international affairs, as the president is discovering. It's impossible for North Dakota to do so - not in a matter as internationally sensitive as this.

There's a detour around the absolutely impassable route ahead. But it runs through Washington, D.C., and state officials should admit it.
Tom Dennis for the Herald